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Topic: Crossness Pumping Station (Read 1460 times)

The sewage may have eventually been swept out to sea, but at least initially some would go up river. As far as I can judge the outlet must be between the J and K tidal diamonds on Imray chart (2100.3iii) which means that the tidal stream is between 1.5 and 2.5 knots upstream at half tide. The ebb tide is faster though, so ultimately anything floating would clear the Thames, but I wonder how far upstream it would go? A rough estimate is to sum the upstream speeds for each hour and that gives about 10 miles upstream for sewage discharged at LWS, or round about the Blackwall tunnel. Nice for London but maybe not so good for Woolwich!

I believe Bazalgette surveyed the river with floats dispensed from a boat at high tide to find the optimum points to site the outfalls from the sewers. This ensured the discharge was carried out when the tide turned and nothing was left behind.

What happens when the wind doesn't blow, does the sewage back up? Only joking but it seems a helluva long way from Richmond to Erith!

It certainly is, which gives an idea of the scale of the place. Beckton Sewage Works across the river near Barking serves a similar sized area which includes the City of London and is even bigger. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the works at Beckton is the largest sewage treatment works in Europe.

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"I did not say that the French will not come, I said they will not come by sea" - Lord St Vincent

"The Embankment nicely brings together three of Bazalgette's great achievements: public health engineering, thoroughfare engineering, and riverside work. In addition to the Embankment he designed some of central London's important thoroughfares, including Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road, and also designed or overhauled the Thames bridges, for example, the Albert Bridge. "

"Bazalgette contributed to other cities too, for example he designed the Broadway Bridge over the Medway at Maidstone."

He also submitted a design for the competition for what is now Tower Bridge. Although unsuccessful, the current bridge does incorporate a part of his design. The winner was the Chief Engineer for The City of London who I believe also judged the competition.

Although I've worked at Crossness Sewage Works on many occasions and have seen this building, I've never had the chance to go in it. For info, Crossness Sewage Works, near Erith, is one of the largest sewage works in the UK at about 170 acres. It serves about 2 million people in the London Boroughs of Richmond-upon-Thames, Wandsworth, Merton, Lambeth, Southwark, Lewisham, Greenwich and parts of Sutton and Bromley. It has an on-site, 6MW power station burning sewage sludge, which combined with a large wind turbine, also on site, means that 75% of the power needs for the works is generated onsite. The wind turbine and sludge-powered generator were built as part of a project completed in 2014, which also saw the capacity of the works significantly expanded, to the point where it can now process 13 million gallons of sewage AN HOUR!

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"I did not say that the French will not come, I said they will not come by sea" - Lord St Vincent